Fabrication of a Scalable Free Standing Single Layer Silver Nanomesh

We present a method of fabricating scalable free standing single layer silver nanomeshes with uniform linewidth. The method consists of In$_{\mathrm{2}}$O$_{\mathrm{3}}$/SiO$_{\mathrm{x}}$ bilayer lift-off metallization, HF-H$_{\mathrm{2}}$O$_{\mathrm{2}}$ based catalytic etching and a chemical lift-off process. Since the linewidth and the mesh size can be well tuned by the isotropic etching of In$_{\mathrm{2}}$O$_{\mathrm{3}}$ islands within a broad range, this method is capable of generating nanomeshes meeting different electrical, optical, and mechanical requirements. Using this method, a 45 nm thick silver nanomesh with 20 {\%} metallic coverage (line width 120 nm) has an average transmittance of 65 {\%} over the whole visible range and a sheet resistance of about 10 $\Omega $/sq. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first time that a cost-effective scalable free standing silver nanomesh with uniform linewidth was obtained. Such nanomeshes may find applications in a lot of fields where good flexibility, high transparency, and good electrical conductivity are required simultaneously, such as flexible transparent electrodes.